


The Stars Are Gone

by mangacrack



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangacrack/pseuds/mangacrack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no place like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stars Are Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Heartwrenching Content.

My back is broken. I'm lying on sharp stones and all pain is bleeding away. Any blood I have left is growing cold, freezing in my veins. Well, it would not surprise me if anyone else but me in this city finds the death in flames. 

I cannot see far, the impact robbed me most of my vision. 

The star are gone. 

There's only blackness around me. I'm inhaling the smoke of my burning city, yet the flames don't reach me.   
The deep pit I fell into protects me from being eaten alive.

I can only die alone, even the screams of the dying orcs and the angry warriors have stopped. 

It is a fitting punishment perhaps, to face my greatest fear. 

To be alone. To die alone. 

I only gave Gondolin's secret away for this. 

Not Idril that ungrateful little girl. Never Idril.   
I envied her for being innocent, for being born loved and protected.   
In my dying hour I realize that I never wanted her.   
I just wanted to _be_ her. To have her place. 

Now it's to late to tell her that I wanted her advice. Her trust.   
Not the shortsighted admiration she applied to Tuor. 

_Forgive me, Eärendil_ , I pray. _You are the only one who will truly suffer from this._

Will he remember me? Will he remember I rocked him to sleep in many nights, to give his tired parents a break.   
Or will he only associate sight of his burning home with the name of a traitor? 

Interesting is that I don't care. He should not grieve. No one should grieve for me.   
Grief cripples. Hope paralyses. 

I know. I have always known. 

Perhaps, if they hate me, they will learn?   
Learn to do better? Not to repeat my mistakes? 

Yes. Yes, this sounds good.   
I have never been the hero. Never have been the leader, who inspires. 

I have always been the corrector, the reviser.   
The teacher with the duty to tell you, where you have gone wrong. 

For years I have long for telling certain individuals 'I told you so'. But most of this foolish pettiness burned away at Nirnaeth Arnoediad. In these hours I learned how sparse my hate towards Ecthelion and Glorfindel was. We fought together, tended each others wounds in these hours and mourned fallen friends. We had not been close friends before, after the Battle of Unnumbered tears, no one of us could deny the new respect for each other. 

While I certainly planned and build the last gate, Ecthelion added his practical experiences and Glorfindel what he remembered about Finwe's construction plans, when he built Tirion. It was supposed to be our greatest work. 

I remember how we laughed together. High upon the walls we sat, when we were taking breaks, admiring the mountains around us. 

They told me about the sea, the ice they had crossed, the star constellations they had seen in Valinor.   
I told them about Nan Elmoth, Eöl's dealings with the dwarfs and what he had told me about his time in Doriath. 

Despite the darkening in the North, the people we had lost in the battles and Idril's wedding with that mortal, it was the first time in my life, I felt accepted. When I held the new born wailing Eärendil the first time, I conceded Idril was happy. Even if Tuor still irritated me. 

Of course it wasn't meant to last. 

Of course Morgoth ruined everything. He had ruined my fathers sanity, when his orcs tortured him, killed his parents and his siblings in front of his eyes before he could escape with a poisoned heart. I cannot hate Eöl, especially not now, when my head is slowly clearing from a similar state of mind. 

Everything since the moment I fell and the orcs took me to Angband is hazy. 

I remember screaming under smoldering steel, seeing familiar faces among the new prisoners and Morgoth taunting laughter. Taunting me that it was just a matter of time until he found Gondolin. The city's strength rested upon no one knowing where it was. 

Knowing my heritage, my lineage, I did what I had to do. 

When he gave me the chance, I decided to flee forward.   
Escape was impossible. Dying as well.   
Morgoth would keep me alive and in chains forever if he had to. 

I couldn't surrender to this fate. One day I knew I would succeed in turning me, turning me into an orc. 

So when I gave away Gondolin's secret, I demanded to partake in it's destruction.   
Morgoth was delighted and let me go. 

He let me go. 

I accepted every possible form of death the moment I stepped out of Angband.   
To breath fresh air again, to see my home one last time ... yes, I would die for this. 

I can live with being a traitor. I can live with being the only traitor.   
I can live with knowing it was me and not someone else. 

It could be a called a weakness. But I saw the tears of a young warrior, who was captured with me.   
I heard his screams and his pleads to make it stop. 

I gave away Gondolin's secret on my own free will to grant this young warrior a swift death.   
Because I killed him and the others as soon as I was free of my chains. 

Now I'm dying, still trapped in a broken body.   
Cold, blind and alone. 

Rain is washing my face, blending together with my tears.   
Everything is slipping away from me. 

I deserve this end as a traitor.   
Maeglin, the traitor. 

But I'm Maeglin and not a twisted creature of hate and despair. 

I'm Maeglin and I'm going home.

**Author's Note:**

> Usually Maeglin is not seen as friend of Glorfindel and Ecthelion. I changed this assumption, because it makes Maeglin end just more tragic. I also took the liberty to make Maeglin a bit more self-sacrificing. He is intelligent, he would know there's no escape for him and that Gondolin's end is just a matter of time. Taking into account that Idril's secret tunnels were not so secret as she thought (I mean, _how_ did she hid this in a isolated and cut-off community?), Maeglin could only take the fate upon himself, before it doomed someone else.


End file.
